UK Students by Institution 2011/12

Student population 2.55 million students were studying for a qualification or for credit at 163 UK higher education institutions (HEIs) in 2011/12. Of these institutions, 162 were publicly-funded and one, The University of Buckingham, was privately funded.

A small proportion of these students (2.1%) were studying at further education (FE) level1. Information about FE students studying in HEIs is included in Table A and in two of the main tables of this publication (Tables 1 and 2), but they are otherwise excluded from this publication. All percentages from this point onwards relate to students at HE level only.

Table A [xls 31 KB] provides the numbers and proportions of HE students studying at each level with comparisons between full-time and part-time. Over two-thirds (68.9%) of the 2,496,645 HE students were following a full-time or sandwich programme, referred to in the rest of this publication as full-time. Just over half of all students (52.6%) were following a full-time first degree programme. It can be seen that a much higher proportion of full-time students were studying for a first degree than of part-time students who were more likely to be studying for another type of undergraduate qualification.